If ever there was a time to place a big importance on our health it is right now! 2020 has seen massive changes with the way we look at our health, and has been a big wake-up call for many people. The fear of Covid-19 has exposed how vulnerable their health really is, in particular their cardiovascular and respiratory health. The best way to improve your heart and lung health is via exercise in combination with healthy eating and keeping your stress levels in check. However, before you start pounding the pavement it is wise to have a baseline measurement of your current fitness levels. This is critical to do before you get started with any exercise program as it achieves two things. Firstly it will also give you a way to measure your improvement as you progress with your program, but more importantly it helps you to understand the different exercise intensities to find what level is best for you. Exercising too intensely too soon can cause more harm than good and having a clear understanding of what intensity is right for you will help to keep your exercise efforts safe, but effective. In this article I show you three different tests I use that vary in difficulty so I can pick the best test for people of different ages and needs.

When you consider that cardiovascular disease is the number 1 cause of death globally and more people die annually from heart disease than from any other cause, it is no wonder people are concerned about their health. An estimated 17.9 million people died from CVDs in 2016, representing 31% of all global deaths. Of these deaths, 85% are due to heart attack and stroke.

Recently here in Australia, cricketing legend Dean Jones died from a sudden heart attack at the age of 59! This attracted a great deal of attention by the media and once again drove home to many people how vulnerable our heart is if we do not look after it appropriately.

In several of our previous articles about the respiratory and cardiovascular systems I have explained in great detail how our breathing feeds oxygen to every cell in the body. Without sufficient oxygen, people are more prone to health problems, including respiratory illnesses, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and even heart disease. But ordinary, everyday breathing isn't enough to keep the oxygen flowing through the body at peak levels. You need to exercise to challenge these systems and ensure they constantly improve.

In the book “Preventing Cancer” by Richard Beliveau PHD and Denis Gingras PHD they sum this up perfectly.

“The positive effect of exercise on the heart is due to a series of physiological and metabolic adaptations in the pulmonary, muscular, and cardiovascular systems that together increase oxygen consumption and energy production. Lower blood pressure, an increased vessel elasticity resulting from exercise truly makes it an all-in-one drug that targets several processes indispensable to maintaining cardiovascular health.”

Below are two quick videos with a quick summary of the important facts relating to heart and lung health.

And for more detail you can read more about these topics in the two articles below.

• Exercise is just as effective as medication for heart health
• How to improve your lung capacity with exercise and high fibre foods

Beware! You must respect exercise for it is a stress on the body and especially the heart. If you over-do it you will pay a price that could be catastrophic, which is why it is important to find out what your current fitness level is before you get started.

Let’s explain how to find your heart rate and what range to work in is right for you.

What Is A Normal Heart Rate?

Obviously this will vary from person to person but generally speaking a normal heart rate, when you're not being active, is somewhere between 60 – 100 beats per minute. This is called your resting heart rate. If you've been active, you'll need to wait at least five minutes before taking your pulse.

When you're active, your heart beats faster to get more oxygen to your working muscles. The harder your body is working, the faster your heart will beat. For example, your heart rate when you're sprinting will be much faster than your heart rate when you're walking. If you're exercising hard it's normal for your heart rate to get up to 160 beats per minute or more, depending on your age and fitness levels.

There are other things that can make your heart beat faster, like caffeine, recreational drugs and some kinds of medications, and also when you feel strong emotions, like anxiety or fear.

Elite athletes and people with great fitness will usually have resting heart beats of less than 60 bpm.

How to Measure Your Pulse Rate?

These days there is many great watches and apps to help do this automatically but if you do not own one of those you can do it the old fashioned way of manually testing.

1. The easiest place to find your pulse is in your wrist.
2. Turn your hand so that your palm is facing upwards.
3. Now place the three middle fingers from your other hand over your wrist below the base of your thumb.
4. Press lightly to feel the pulse under your fingers. If you can't feel anything press slightly harder.

You can measure your heart rate manually by checking your pulse. Follow these three steps.

1. Find your pulse in your wrist (as explained above).
2. Count each beat for a total time of 30 seconds.
3. Double the number of beats you counted. This is your heart rate or pulse, measured in beats per minute.

What Is VO2 Max?

Fitness can be measured by the volume of oxygen you can consume while exercising at your maximum capacity. VO2max is the maximum amount of oxygen in millilitres, one can use in one minute per kilogram of body weight. Those who are fit have higher VO2max values and can exercise more intensely than those who are not as well conditioned. Numerous studies show that you can increase your VO2max by working out at an intensity that raises your heart rate to between 65 and 85% of its maximum for at least 20 minutes three to five times a week.

However, you must “earn the right” to train like that and to do this safely you need to gradually build up. Some people may not need to train that hard to be healthy, it is all about finding the right balance.

Let’s take a look at some simple tests to determine your heart rate capability and VO2 max level. Below you can watch the video that features an example of all three of the tests I am about to explain.

1.6km Walking Test

This is possibly the simplest test you could do and is a great one to do for an older adult, a person who is severely overweight, or a person coming back from illness. This is a very safe test to do and requires little in the way of equipment or skill making it very easy to replicate.

To undertake this test you will require:

• 400 metre track or treadmill
• Stop watch

How to complete the test

• Choose a windless day to conduct the test
• Record your weight
• Walk one mile (1600 metres) as fast as possible
• Record the time to complete the one mile walk
• Immediately on finishing the walk record your heart rate (beats per minute)
• Determine you VO2max.

The formula used to calculate VO2max is:

4 132.853 – (0.0769 x Weight) – (0.3877 x Age) + (6.315 x Gender) – (3.2649 x Time) – (0.1565 x Heart rate).

Where:

• Weight is in pounds (lbs)
• Gender Male = 1 and Female = 0
• Time is expressed in minutes and 100ths of minutes
• Heart rate is in beats/minute
• Age is in years.

If you struggle to complete this test this in less than 20 minutes this indicates you should make walking at a moderate pace as the only form of exercise for the first 2-3 weeks. Starting at 15 minute walks every day for the first week, increasing to 25 minutes in the second week, and finishing at 30-35 minutes by week 3.  At the end of week 3 you would retest yourself to see how much improvement you have made.

Once you have reached this point it is time to take it up a notch and try the step up test.

Small Box Step-Up Test

This is my preferred test for most people to use, especially with older adults looking to improve daily function. Once again this is very simple to do and requires little in the way of equipment. The reason I like this test so much is that it elevates the heart rate very quickly and relates very closely to the daily functional movement of walking up stairs.

To undertake this test you will require:

• 12 inch high bench or step. (The picture shown above has a step that is too high)
• Stop watch
• Heart rate monitor if you have one

How to Complete the Test

1. Step up and down, one foot at a time, onto the step or bench for 3 minutes
2. Try to maintain a steady four beat cycle (approx. 22 to 24 steps/minute)
3. On finishing the test count the number of heart beats for 15 seconds
4. Multiply the number of beats in 15 seconds by 4
5. Use this final value to assess your performance using the table shown in the video

The other great reason I love this test is that it is very easy to determine your level of ability by comparing your test result versus the charts shown below. With many people this serves as a great source of motivation to get to the next level and constantly improve.

If you are in the below average and poor categories you are wise to continue with the walking program and keep increasing your volume of time until you reach the average score on this test. A strength training program will be safe for this person and will be of great assistance with improving movement and strength.

If you scored average or higher you can safely begin increasing your intensity gradually with other activities like running, cycling and swimming. And if you are in the good or higher you may want to try the next test!

Treadmill Running Test

This last test is definitely the most intense of the three tests and more suited to the younger population. This is obviously not suited to anyone who has issues with running and the previous tests would be a much safer choice. If however, you are a capable runner and you have access to a treadmill this is a great way to test your heart rate capability and VO2 max.

To undertake this test you will require:

• Treadmill where speed and grade of slope can be adjusted
• Stop watch

How to conduct the test

You must run on a treadmill to exhaustion!

Set the speed at 11.3km/h and every minute you must increase the gradient by 2%. Run until you can no longer run anymore and record the time. See below.

1. 1 minute @ 11.3km/hr gradient 0
2. 2 minute @ 11.3km/hr gradient 2
3. 3 minute @ 11.3km/hr gradient 4
4. 4 minute @ 11.3km/hr gradient 6
5. 5 minute @ 11.3km/hr gradient 8
6. 6 minute @ 11.3km/hr gradient 10
7. 7 minute @ 11.3km/hr gradient 12
8. 8 minute @ 11.3km/hr gradient 14

From the total running time an estimate of your VO2max can be calculated as follows:

VO2max = 42 + (Time x 2)

There are many other tests you can use but these give you some great ideas of how you can use different forms of exercise to measure your current status and improvements. Always remember to keep the test safe and if you do not feel right do not do it.

How to Improve Your Test Result

Now that you have a baseline measurement it is time to design some workouts around improving the test result. It is impossible for me to tell you exactly what workout is best as it all depends on the person. The workout a 40 year old with no injuries can do is vastly different to the workout I would prescribe to the 75 year old with a crook hip and back. Interval training is by far the most effective method to use but if you are not currently consistently training you will need to build a base to work from first.

In some cases these tests can become an exercise workout in their own right, but I would avoid trying to improve your fitness from repeatedly doing these tests. Best results are obtained from a mixture of activities, and it is wise to gradually build up. Over-training can pose serious risks to your heart so you must be careful of falling into the trap of more is better. Quality training always beats excessive junk training. Also the treadmill running test shown last is too strenuous to do several times per week. If you are capable of doing this test I suggest testing yourself once every 3-4 weeks at most.

Another big mistake many people make when they decide they want to get fit, is going straight to cardio activities like running and ignoring their ability to move correctly. When people look to get in shape they believe that moving well will just happen. They believe all they have to do is get out there and get it done and the body will fix itself. Unfortunately it won’t. And movement problems will only get worse when compounded by frequency and volume of training that ultimately end up as an injury. Now you have a new problem to contend with.

Before you jump into hard intense training spend the time to develop some good movement skills, work on your mobility and stability and increase your strength. This will build a solid foundation for you to take part in fitness training without the risk of injury and pain setting you back.

I have covered this before many times in many of our articles and you will find a great article to read with more detail here – Why you can never sacrifice exercise technique

Below are two great videos to watch that summarize this for you.

Don’t Forget You MUST Eat Healthy Foods

Exercise is great but it will have little impact on your health if your diet does not match your training efforts. You must place as much focus on this are as you do with your workout, for it is impossible to out-train a bad diet. This is nothing new and many people deep down know this fact to be true, but it is something we see all the time.

Elite athletes understand this basic law and look at food as equally important to them as their training, for they know it provides the necessary fuel, vitamins, minerals, and the nutrients the body needs to adapt to the physical stress in order to become fit and strong. There are many things to consider when it comes to specific foods to enhance heart health and you will find a great info-graphic that explains this by clicking here.

Make Sure You Grab This Special Report

To make life easier for you I created a detailed report that includes everything you need to know about nutrition and exercise for heart health. There is specific chapters relating to various needs like diabetes, lung capacity, cholesterol, and even detailed heart rate testing assessments. This is the ultimate manual to not only improve your heart health, but your overall health.

You can download the PDF report instantly click here or on the image above. 

Summary

Whether you are a young person looking to get in great shape or an older adult looking to preserve your ability to live a healthy life in your golden years the importance of looking after your heart cannot be ignored. I always find it useful to use tests to confirm exactly where you are at and not rely on gut feel or assumptions as these can be very misleading and lead to disastrous consequences. We must not assume that because a person is skinny that they are strong and fit, as there are many thin people who have weak hearts that are vulnerable to illness and disease.

Our heart works 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year and it needs our constant attention. I hope the information provided in this article gives you a greater understanding of how to do this.

For more ideas and information on specific topics I may not have covered in detail be sure to check out our INDEX PAGE on the website that has over 200 of our best articles. These are all sorted into categories for quick reference so you can find what you are after more easily.

If you do need specific help with your exercise program please feel free to reach out to me for help by clicking the image below and we can set you up with your individualised program. International and interstate readers I can provide online training that you can organize by requesting a Zoom call.

About The Author

Nick Jack is owner of No Regrets Personal Training and has over 15 years’ experience as a qualified Personal Trainer, Level 2 Rehabilitation trainer, CHEK practitioner, and Level 2 Sports conditioning Coach. Based in Melbourne Australia he specialises in providing solutions to injury and health problems for people of all ages using the latest methods of assessing movement and corrective exercise.

References:

• WHO - World Health Organisation
• Heart foundation
• CSIRO
• Baker Institute
• Precision Nutrition
• Nutrition & Physical Degeneration - By Weston A Price
• Big Fat Lies - By David Gillespie
• How To Eat, Move & Be Healthy by Paul Chek
• Movement - By Gray Cook
• Corrective Exercise Solutions for the Hip & Shoulder - by Evan Osar
• Athletic Body Balance by Gray Cook
• Diagnosis & Treatment Of Movement Impairment Syndromes - By Shirley Sahrman
• Motor Learning and Performance - By Richard A Schmidt and Timothy D Lee
• Assessment & Treatment Of Muscle Imbalance - By Vladimir Janda
• 101 Fitness Evaluations - By Peak Performance